Your Story Needs a Villain

If I want success, I need to know who I'm fighting to get it

Starting from scratch is never easy. Leaving all your past accomplishments behind to chase after a new dream, especially in a time of extreme uncertainty, is scary. Actually, scary doesn’t quite cover how much fear and anxiety comes with abandoning what we know to dive head first into relative foreign waters.

I’ve started a clothing business called Lost Mixtape; a premium brand built around the idea of celebrating analog nostalgic moments, pulling ourselves out of our digital existence and work toward more human moments. I’m an artist and graphic designer by trade, which is a decent skillset, but what business do I have starting a premium clothing company with aspirations to move into handmade wearable goods?

When shutting my eyes at night, forcing my way to slumber, the thoughts of doubt, quieted by the noise of the day, come raging forward, hitting stress receptors all at once.

Will I really be able to make enough from this project?

What does people think of me?

Do they laugh because I’m starting yet another project that will likely fail?

Where will I live once it does fail because I obviously will never be able to show my face to anyone ever again?

And yet, I haven’t quit. I’m invested in this project, absolutely, but if I’m being honest, I’m not doing enough to make it work as well as I want. I’m 90% in, largely because those doubts permeate my limbic brain, which yanks me by the collar, forcing me to ease up on the accelerator to keep me from hurting myself.

Without me, the lizard brain cannot exist, and it will do anything to survive.

Fear holds me back from greatness.

I didn’t push myself harder because I wasn’t desperate enough to go that extra 10%.

Working at 90% is safe. It’s fast enough forward to get some things done, but not enough to get hurt, and by hurt, I mean bruising my ego and risking self-imposed isolation again.

My situation has always been safe. Without going into how we make ends meet, my family has always had a reasonable amount of financial security, enough to keep us housed, fed, and humming along without risk of being out on our asses tomorrow.

That was until this year where every expense we had increased, and we’re now paying at least 30% more for the same level of comfort we had last year. We aren’t buying more things—our expenses have increased, and it wouldn’t take a genius to know why.

Your project doesn’t need a hero, but a villain.

At the beginning of this year, I started a small side job to help alleviate some of the increasing financial pressure, and the first thing I learned is that I do NOT want this bridge job keeping me away from my family or my business, but I must keep it for now or risk financial peril.

Instead, I’ve chosen to make the side job my nemesis. I want it out of my life so bad, I’m willing to fight over it. I value my freedom too much to let this side job take it from me. I want my time and attention back, and if that means going extra hard during my available hours to work on Lost Mixtape, then that’s what it takes.

The sacrifice of sleep and attention normally reserved for family, friends, and personal time is necessary to defeat my enemy, but once I get to a point where I’m comfortable to let go of the side job, I’ll need a new villain, because I cannot allow myself to go backward, fighting old enemies over and over again.

There’s no plan other than calling myself out on my bullshit when I spend too much time futzing with things on my website that don’t bring sales, doom scrolling Instagram calling it research, or disregarding my chore list to play Arc Raiders with my son (that last one gets a bit of a pass—I chalk it up as father/son time).

I don’t know if others can relate to this concept, but if you feel like you’re not getting far enough ahead in your projects, maybe look for a villain to fight so that you can become the hero you need.